A stud in my jam? Not berry edible

DEENA COSTER

Last updated 05:00 19/06/2014

SWEET SHOCK: This jar of raspberry jam bought by Hawera woman Petra Finer had granules of glass in it, prompting her to write a warning of her own on the label before phoning in a complaint to the company.

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Pams' jam problem appears to be spreading.

About a fortnight ago, Hawera woman Thelma Edgar found a small, four-pronged stud in her Pams blackcurrant jam.

She said she had originally mistaken it for a berry, but was proven wrong when she went to take a bite of her morning toast.

"I thought ‘eww', what's that?"

She said she was happy she had spotted the spiky, silver stud though.

"If I swallowed it, it might have caused some damage," Edgar said.

She was prompted to come forward with her story after reading yesterday's article in the Taranaki Daily News about Petra Finer's find in a jar of Pams raspberry jam.

On Tuesday, Finer found a tiny fragment of glass in the spread when she was preparing school lunches for her children.

After reading about Finer's experience, Edgar phoned in a complaint of her own to the company.

She said her jar would also be couriered away and assessed by Pams staff in the coming days.

Edgar said it was the first time she had found anything unusual hiding away in her grocery items, and the fact that it had happened to someone else in Hawera was very random.

"Two in Hawera in the space of a couple of weeks," she said.

In response to the two complaints, a Pams customer services manager said until investigations had been completed they had no way of knowing what had led to the contamination.

"We have a protocol to follow," she said.

However, she said it was "absolutely" unusual to get two different cases reported in such quick succession from the same town.